BUCS WILL ANNOUNCE NEW HEAD COACH, G.M. TODAY

Posted by Mike Florio on January 17, 2009, 12:25 PM EST

In what likely was one of the shortest searches for a new head coach and a new General Manager in the history of sports, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will announce on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. EST their new head coach and new General Manager.
The announcement will come less than 24 hours after the franchise abruptly fired former head coach Jon Gruden and former G.M. Bruce Allen.
Though the team-issued release doesn’t identify the new head coach or the new G.M., it widely has been reported that defensive coordinator Raheem Morris will be the new coach, and that pro personnel director Mark Dominik will be the new G.M.
The speed with which this is happening makes us wonder whether Morris and Dominik knew that Gruden and Allen were being fired before it happened, which to say the least won’t do much to help Morris and Gruden have an amicable relationship in the future, or Allen and Dominik.
We also wonder whether the league will express concern to the Bucs for elevating Dominik, who is white, without honoring the spirit of the arguably outdated Rooney Rule. Though the Rooney Rule doesn’t apply to G.M. hires, teams have been encouraged to engage in inclusive and diverse searches for such positions.
The elevation of Morris, who is black, to the head-coaching job without (presumably) interviewing any other candidates makes us believe even more strongly that the time has come for a comprehensive review and debate as to whether the Rooney Rule should be scuttled.
The goal of the measure was to ensure that minority candidates receive fair consideration for head-coaching jobs. In less than three weeks, three African-American coaches received head-coaching jobs without any (or serious) consideration given to other candidates.
These developments not only prove that the NFL franchises have made great strides in the consideration of minority candidates, but also increase the possibility of the perception that the current procedure is unfair to non-minority candidates.
We’re not saying that the rule should be dumped. But it definitely should be reviewed, and a range of possible changes (including dumping it altogether) should be considered before the next hiring cycle.

Perhaps owners are realizing that X’s and O’s are not the
only thing to be considered when hiring a head coach. Do
the Afro American coaches in the NFL motivate and relate
better to Afro American Players?

The Rooney rule should absolutely not be dumped. It’s working and should be continued. Certainly, there have been very, very, very, very few times when a white candidate was not interviewed for a head coaching position, so what is the harm in ensuring that a minority gets an interview?
Also, I believe Raheem Morris got promoted because his name was becoming hot, and perhaps (well, stronger than perhaps) the Bucs did not want to lose him. And a theory I just thought of is, perhaps, since Morris is an African American, perhaps that news in itself made it “easier” for the Bucs to hire Mark Dominik without worrying about the implication of the Rooney rule since racism ought not (in some eyes) to be charged against an organization that hires Tony Dungy, then wins a Super Bowl with the next coach (justifying the decision in hiring Gruden), and then hiring an African American coach after rightfully firing Gruden.

Any compulsory, forced moves in a free market, such as affirmative action and this rooney rule are un-American and wrong at the core.
You own your team, you can do what you want with it. The players can boycott if they want to force things, but to say, you have to interview a person of a certain ethnicity would never happen in nature, and it shouldn’t happen in the board room.
Way to highlight the race card Florio, and objectify the whole thing. We shouldn’t even be talking about it, and maybe our society can get past it.

Dump the Rooney Rule. If I were black, I’d be insulted. How come organizations don’t have to interview females, the hearing-impaired, Vietnam vets, those who lack the gene for tasting bitterness…?
Outdated and disgusting.

Let’s see over half the NFL players are Black, but there are only three decision makers (GM’s, etc.) that are Black. Are there more than 50% of the coaches in the NFL Black if not, the Rooney Rule needs to stay…..

Florio wrote: “The speed with which this is happening makes us wonder whether Morris and Dominik knew that Gruden and Allen were being fired before it happened, which to say the least won’t do much to help Morris and Gruden have an amicable relationship in the future, or Allen and Dominik.”
Why would Morris or Dominik care about amicable relationships in the future with Gruden or Allen? Morris won’t be stupid enough to hire Gruden as O coordinator; reverse it and why should Gruden have sour grapes toward Morris who worked for him (2 stints) just because the Glazers got tired of “Chucky Ball” and replaced him with Morris?
As for Allen – being such a poor judge of talent and drafter plus being in bed with Gruden are his 2 down falls – how will that or Allen himself affect the future of Dominik?
Now some other poor team will drink the Chucky/Allen Koolaid Kombo and buy into this duo shortly. And to who ever it is (Al Davis/Jerry Jones/Woody Johnson/Noter Dame – good luck with the “Dink and Stink” offense and that notorious player favoritism, “split the locker room between offense and defense” philosophy on some other team – any where but Tampa Bay, good riddance to both.

The Rooney Rule is another reverse racism measure put in place by ideologues. The person that is most qualified should receive the job. In the NFL case, it is whoever the owners wants to coach his team. He does own it and he has the right to be racism if he so chooses. I disagree strongly with racism, but if he owns the team he should be able to pick who he wants.

@F00kFl0ri0:
More than half of the NFL players are black, but only about 15% of Americans are black. Forcing 50% of coaches to be black would actually over-represent them society. Wrong and disgusting.
You need to rethink this.

The Rooney Rule will get dumped as soon as “White History Month” is celebrated in the U.S.
Let’s face the facts …
There was clearly an issue. That issue clearly has been eliminated and therefore the rule is not necessary any longer.
In fact, if I were a white head coaching candidate I’d consider a lawsuit for reverse discrimination.

brauneyz,
Were not talking about society, we’re talking about the NFL. I can understand if the NFL mandated that over 50% of the ticket sales were distributed to Blacks or other minorities, but we’re not, we’re talking about a structure within the NFL…..

The Rooney Rule is working and should be expanded to include:
All players should interview at least one African American (AA) agent and lawyer before they can hire a White guy. There are way too many White guy agents and lawyers out there representing the NFL talent. It only makes sense that since most players are AA, their agents and lawyers should also be AA.
Also, when a team is sold, every attempt should be made to sell it to an (AA) owner. We should also try our best not to sell teams to wannabe GM’s like the dipshoots in Dallas and Washington. Also maybe we should take the team from Al Davis. Maybe also those guys in Cleveland and Detroit who always field crappy teams. I think that would about do it. Oh, and no team should go to LA….we tried that and they don’t want one. OK, I think that is it.

You people are so small-minded. If it was not for these affirmative action type efforts, we would still be in the dark ages. It was not that long ago that there were NO African American coaches in the league. Just because it has changed now, does not mean it is not still needed. The banter on this board more than confirms this.
If people were hired on qualifications then it would have never been an issue to begin with. Stop being naive. Naivety caused the Rooney Rule to be utilized to begin with. Not to mention Morris was the hot candidate this year(black or white), and this is a me too/copycat league. Notice how 3 of the 4 teams in the championship games have young coaches. Now everyone wants the “hot” position coach or coordinator for this year.

Let me start by saying I am 100% for the best coach for the job, whether he’s black, white, green, or even a female. This is what I have never understood about the Rooney rule:
HYPOTHETICALLY, let’s say the Jets are hellbent on hiring Bill Cowher after the ’09 season. They’ve coveted the guy for years, they’ve done their homework, and, in their mind, he’s their guy. Is there anything wrong with that? No. Now, they are supposed to waste not only their time, but the time of a minority candidate, to do an interview and get said minority candidate’s hopes up, when the whole interview is merely going through the motions, and said candidate has zero chance of getting the job?
I’m not being sarcastic. I really don’t understand. In my opinion, if an owner is too ignorant to hire the best guy for the job then his team will be negatively affected and he pays the consequences.
Any helpful explanations would honestly be appreciated.

If Morris was the “hot candidate,” why wasn’t he hired by any team outside the team for which he already coached? He was as “hot” as Leslie Frazier.
The Rooney Rule is racist and insulting to blacks. MLK dreamed that blacks would be judged on their actions and intelligence, not the color of their skin. 40 years later, the dream still hasn’t come true, because people like Sportsprofessor want to shove affirmative action down our throats. Maybe if Raheem Morris had been the best candidate, he would have gotten a job in Cleveland, Denver, New York, Detroit, Oakland, St Louis, or Indianapolis. How long until Dan Rooney wants to implement a rule that forces owners to interview women for the head coaching job? Guess what? If there was a woman out there who was the best qualified candidate for a head coaching position, she’d probably have a job by now. The cream always rises to the top.
There was no Rooney Rule in place when Art Shell and Tony Dungy were hired. My God, how did they even get interviews?

Rooney rule = typical liberal message to blacks:
“you’re not good enough on merit so we’ll institute some legislation to help you out”
If they keep it, then institute a reverse Rooney rule for defensive backs.

I think the Rooney rule has served it’s purpose as the owners today generally will do whatever it takes to win regardless of the candidate’s race. However, to say the rule is a farce and was never needed is absurd. The first minority coach was hired about 30 years ago. Even with his success, it took the same organization to hire another minority coach without the Rooney rule. So it was absoulutely needed.
I didn’t see any outcry when all those white coaches got chance after chance for decades with no consideration for their minority counterparts. I do think Morris being hired with no other candidates being brought in is as bad as the minority candidates being excluded in the past because this was not an example of a team with a coach in waiting.
That being said, a lot of the white posters on this board show their true colors when this subject comes up. No one is suggesting that anyone who’s unqualified get a job. THere aren’t any Native American, women, or handicapped assistant coaches that I’m aware of on the radar, so that’s a jackass analogy. When Norm Chow was Tn’s OC, I recall him sitting for the Az HC job. He satisfied the Rooney rule as well, so don’t let your underlying disdain for black people seep out onto the surface.
YOu can argue that Morris or Winston Moss is unqualified, but I could have argued the same for John Harbaugh or Tony Sponrano. You don’t know what a coaching candidate will do until they are in charge. Believe me, no one’s putting anyone in charge of a million and sometimes billion dollar corporation because they want to make strides with the black community.
In addition, for the guy saying that if owners want to have racist hiring practices, it’s their perogative, you’re wrong. It’s against the law. However, that kind of mentality is why the Rooney rule and affirmative action programs exist. Thanks for making my point.
If everyone was ncluded in the process regardless of race, looks, or other dumb criteria, but rather only judging on their resume, we wouldn’t need any of these arm twisting moves to get things done.

The Rooney Rule is unfair to non-minority candidates?
Somebody smokin’ something up in here? Did you bring enough to share with everybody?
How “fair” was the hiring process in Cleveland? Did anyone seriously think the Browns were going to hire another Black coach to replace Romeo Crennel? Can anyone tell me who was the minority candidate who interviewed with Seattle before Jim Mora got the job there?
Crennel is a perfect example of how well the Rule works. He got interviewed. He got the job. He was allowed time to build his own team. He had some success, but this season he failed and was let go—to be replaced by a White coach who had just failed as well.
I’m not seeing a problem here. If not for the Rooney Rule, NFL head coaches would look as lily-white as the majority of NCAA football teams.
Last time I looked the majority of the players in the NFL were Black and the majority of the coaches in the NFL were White. That’s been the status quo for some time to come.
Dumping on a rule that was designed to give qualified minorities a shot at just getting a interview is NOT in any way, shape or form preventing White coaches from getting jobs in the NFL. The arguments I’ve read here in this thread are really just taking swipes at the Rooney Rule as a substitute for a bigger grudge against affirmative action in society as a whole.

Rooney rule = typical liberal message to blacks:
“you’re not good enough on merit so we’ll institute some legislation to help you out”
Incorrect. Rooney Rule = The European has shown since day 1 that he is incapable of overcoming his inherent racist nature on his own. The European has shown he is incapable of judging non-Europeans “on merit”. Hence, legislation must be instituted in order to allow non-Europeans to overcome the inherent racist nature of the European.

For the guy saying Dungy got an interview without the Rooney Rule, what world are you from? The only minority coaches hired before the institution of the Rooney rule were Tom Flores and Art Shell, and I think we all know the Raiders have never operated with many barriers within its organization with having the only female executive in football and all.
For years, people were in an uproar because Dungy kept getting passed over for less qualified white guys around the league before he was hired by the absolutely worst franchise in football at the time, so don’t change history to suit your point.
In addition, the liberal and Obama banter is tired, he’ll be the President next Tuesday. Get over it, and stop making a jackass out of yourself. A lot of white people voted for him, too. It’s usually necessary in this country where they are the majority race.

brauneyz says:
January 17th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
“Dump the Rooney Rule. If I were black, I’d be insulted. How come organizations don’t have to interview females, the hearing-impaired, Vietnam vets, those who lack the gene for tasting bitterness…?
Outdated and disgusting. ”
absolutly. i agree. the freakin next president is black. the rooney rule and black history month should go out the window. time to progress, not promote difference by pointing out why people should be treated differently. it’s hypocritical and ludicrous.

“Rooney rule = typical liberal message to blacks:
“you’re not good enough on merit so we’ll institute some legislation to help you out”
Incorrect. Rooney Rule = The European has shown since day 1 that he is incapable of overcoming his inherent racist nature on his own. The European has shown he is incapable of judging non-Europeans “on merit”. Hence, legislation must be instituted in order to allow non-Europeans to overcome the inherent racist nature of the European. ”
——————————————————————–
asafo-lw. you’re an idiot. first of all, when was “day 1”. second of all, putting such a generalization on all europeans is no different than NFL execs saying “blacks can’t coach”…understand? your idiocy is keeping racism alive. nobody these days deserves anything for just being black/red/yellow/white/etc.
don’t be so naive

ACDC84, since you’re one of the few who have phrased this question like a reasonable human being, I’ll do my best to offer an explanation.
“HYPOTHETICALLY, let’s say the Jets are hellbent on hiring Bill Cowher after the ‘09 season. They’ve coveted the guy for years, they’ve done their homework, and, in their mind, he’s their guy. Is there anything wrong with that? No. Now, they are supposed to waste not only their time, but the time of a minority candidate, to do an interview and get said minority candidate’s hopes up, when the whole interview is merely going through the motions, and said candidate has zero chance of getting the job?”
This situation you’ve described is basically an example the Old Boy Network, where a small group of powerful folks keep that power within their circle. If you want an example of what the NFL would be like without the Rooney Rule, take a look at college football: 120 or so teams, the vast majority of which are comprised of black players, and only 6 black head coaches. Those numbers simply don’t jibe.
But even if a candidate doesn’t get that particular job, his name is in circulation for future jobs. Maybe during the interview, he impresses a personnel man who goes on to be a GM somewhere else and hires him there.
The Rooney Rule has flaws, but it’s just an interview. Nobody is forcing any team to hire someone they don’t like. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

The next President is biracial, both equal parts White and Black, idiot. But you see his skin color and automatically assume that he’s Black. But that’s how racists think, they see skin color not the person behind the skin…..